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Sustainability at the Restaurant

The Terrace—A Certified Green Restaurant®

The Terrace continues to serve up exciting green news—in October of 2010 Longwood’s eatery became a Certified Green Restaurant® through the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), and was recertified in August 2016. Find out more at www.dinegreenco.com.

Local Food Sources

The Terrace is working with local farmers and produce distributors to provide our guests with the freshest seasonal foods while supporting our local farms. Local food means a dramatic reduction in transportation emissions, days of refrigeration, and packaging.

Longwood is a proud member of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture, working to further the connections between people and their food. We seasonally grow herbs, fruits and vegetables in the Idea Garden, which are used in the 1906 Fine Dining Room. This means zero food mileage adversely affecting our environment!

Compostable Dishware, Cups, Bottles

While both compostable and ceramic dishes require resources to make and maintain them, we have chosen to use compostable dishes in our Café for several reasons.

Almost all of the compostable ware used in The Terrace goes to our large scale compost facility. Instead of going to the landfill, it returns to the Gardens or our farm lands. This helps us close the loop by keeping organics here on site--nourishing our soils instead of creating waste.

While Compostable dishes may take years, even decades, to break down in a landfill, they do eventually break down. A plastic or ceramic dish will not. The energy, hot water, and detergent required to maintain re-usable dishware is also not needed.

Recycling

Materials such as plastic bottles, light bulbs, steel cans, paper and cardboard that cannot be composted are recycled through different programs, ensuring landfill diversion. The water used at the facility is recycled as part of our effluent irrigation system.

Efficient Lighting

We use energy efficient lighting in both the food service and dining areas. T5 lamps are lower than incandescent lamps in energy consumption, and metal halide fixtures consume 50% less energy and have a longer lifespan than incandescent lamps.

Natural Materials

Solid surfaces throughout The Terrace, including tray slides and counter tops, are made from low-emitting materials and are Greenguard certified. These surfaces are eligible for a number of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) credits.

Sustainable Furniture

The benches in the corridors are made from a minimum of 70% recycled material content, FSC certified wood, and powder coat finishes contain no heavy metals.

Tables in the Gallery and the Lodge are made of laminated granite to reduce the amount of natural stone used.

The Lodge features an innovative use of surplus seat belts as webbing for the barstool backs.

“Green” Upholstery

Eco-friendly Flooring

Most of the carpeting is either made from recycled content (from 10% to 100% post-consumer material), or is 100% recyclable. The linoleum used on the lower level of The Terrace is made from all natural materials and is SMART certified.